SM Stirling, my most-read author, is an excellent story-teller on a grand scale. However, from time to time he does get bogged down in details, especially poems or songs crafted by his characters. I skip right over those because, through experience, they are extremely rarely relevant. In that respect, I suppose I fail the reading-while-bored test.

I used to be a Stephen King fan, but by Tommyknockers, I got sick of 1/3 a novel's length of exposition.

In the '90s, I had a long commute by public transit to a job in NE Philadelphia and resolved to use the time reading all the books I didn't get to read in college. I have no regrets after "Crime and Punishment" and "War and Peace", but how many writers today are as good as Fyodor and the Count?

WV "ecrate" What God accomplished in six days after the current Administration and Congress get through with it.

I read most of Michener's works when I was in high school, and just got a hankering to start reading them again.

Just got Chesapeake. About a 1000 pages.

For me, long novels are entirely worth reading. I read pretty quick so a long novel means I actually have something to read for a bit of time, a story to get lost in. Reading fiction is like a necessary diversion after reading intense non-fiction all day.

Long novels also help re-pace a life. Slow us down. Let us sit with an experience for a long while.

I think long novels are absolutely worth reading. Like climbing a mountain or running a marathon.

Some people like to talk about how our information rich society will mean the death of books, but I don't see that happening. If anything people want the type of immersive experiences they can get from reading long novels.

Some genres, like literary fiction, are hurting; but others are having a golden age. I love old books (even War and Peace which was held up as an example in the bloggingheads video) but I will turn away from them to read new stuff. And length does not scare me. I've read two different works that had to be printed in three volumes.

First, if the only long book I had ever read was Infinite Jest, I would hate long books to. It is the worst American Novel of the 20th Century and Wallace America's worst modern writer. It is just a terrible book. It is hundreds of pages of Wallace smelling his own farts telling the world how smart he is with words and never bothering to provide things like interesting dialog or a coherent plot or an intelligent point.

Yglasias is right. There are lots of great books to read. Some of them are long and worth reading. But there are too many to read in a life time. So be very careful what you pick. And don't waste your time on posers like Wallace.

I don't understand this question. What is better than getting 300 pages into a great novel and realizing: more than 700 to go! On the other hand, if you give a novel 300-400 pages and it stinks, give it up.At Amazon I recently saw a comment from one reader that he did not read anything over 300 pages long. I don't understand that. Why would three 300 page novels be better than one 900 page novel? The perfect novel would be so good you looked forward to having time to read it, and so long it took years to finish.

The girl looks so much like my godchild (except for the 'do) it's uncanny. Do Jews have godparents?

But, yes, long novels are still worth reading: David Copperfield, Great Expectations, etc. So the question becomes, are modern long novels worth reading. And I would have to say no: Midnight's Children -- no. The Name of the Rose -- no. A Suitable Boy -- unh-uh.

What is good about it? It is terrible. It has no coherent plot. And it makes a boring and mundane point. Wallace is terrible. I am sorry he killed himself. Shame he had to die with that piece of crap as his best known work.

I would be very interested in this crowd's take on long novels they have read. I liked "The Name of the Rose" very much. I loved "Cryptonomicon" However, while I somewhat enjoyed it, I would not recommend Stephenson's "Baroque Trilogy" which is three huge novels which really make up one obscenely huge novel. Plenty of good stuff, but the entertainment to hour ratio was not very good.

"I've never read INFINITE JEST and it may very well be a chore to slog through--or not--but a "coherent plot" is not always necessary for a book to be riveting."

True. But, Infiinite Jest is just transparent poser hipster crap. I hated it. The whole book is a big cheat. He has characters who show up, and then disappear with no explination or resolution. The whole book is a cheat and Wallace a show off.

I really liked The Name of the Rose too, but just couldn't get into Stephenson.

The Brothers Karamazov is certainly a great read, though I think it's something more appreciated when older. That it's often assigned to college students probably turns more people off to great reading... as does most literature class assigned reading.

I don't know, someone mentioned The First Circle and that didn't seem like a long book at all. None of Solzhenitsyn's books did. One the other hand I've read more than a few books in the 200-300 page range that seemed really, really, r e a l l y, long.

Love long novels, especially the Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon. I'm currently about 400 pages into Infinite Jest, and have been enjoying it thus far. I despise end notes, but quite enjoy foot notes...that's the only thing I'd change about IJ so far.

"There's so much more happening [in the modern world...] in the era of the giant classic novel..."

Yeah, there's standing in the middle of high-speed traffic, picking lint out of your navel, washing your cat... there's lots of activities more rewarding nowadays than reading a "futuristic parody of America"* like Infinite Jest, which sounds like one of those "OMG important you must read" clever, ironic tomes like Confederacy of Dunces that people read to show how clever and ironic they are. Well, I'll just sit here in the corner with my copy of Lord of the Rings, thanks. And is Matthew Yglesias gay or just a beta male? NTTAWWT.

Paddy O, my sister is obsessed with those Patrick O'Brian books. I've read a couple, but I can't get past all the shipping lingo ... I never understand what's going on. All those books need to come with a glossary and a diagram of the ship with all parts labeled.

The unabridged Stranger in a Strange Land is quite voluminous, and an amazingly fast read given the fact that it is almost entirely dialog. The conceit is great for some good Sci-Fi style questioning of mores and overall, it's a very novel approach at a messianic storyline.

Underworld - which was mentioned in the video - is certainly worth the time and trouble. I'd rank it in the top-25 novels of the last 20 years.Anathem is also a compelling read. I read it over the holidays last year, and was sad to see it end.And that is the joy of a longer novel for me...when you get so deeply into a work that you are torn between wanting to sneak off and read for an hour, but at the same time wanting to not read so the book can go on longer. I'll add one (slightly shorter) book to those mentioned above: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas , which checks in at 550 pages or so. Worth the time, IMHO.

Ralph--of course I loved Gone with the Wind. My first really long novel and frequently re-read. (Also, the best book-to-movie adaptation ever.)

Another really great long novel is Santmyer's ...and Ladies of the Club. Not enough people have read that. Politics, history, and fabulous characters. I'm sad to leave the last page every time I read it.

WV: tortio, a word that reminds me of JK Rowling. The Harry Potter series is another beloved long novel.